


Is There a Badge For That?

by youngavengerfeels



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Camping, First Meetings, M/M, Meet-Cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-10
Updated: 2017-04-10
Packaged: 2018-10-17 04:18:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10586286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youngavengerfeels/pseuds/youngavengerfeels
Summary: Bucky is the troop leader for his niece's Girl Scout troop. On a troop camping tips he meets Boy Scout Scoutmaster Steve.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Here is this weeks fic. I like so hopefully you guys will too. Also I really hate coming up with titles so I may change it.

Bucky had been a Boy Scout for all of a week before he got kicked out for back talking the scoutmaster. He hadn't wanted to join anyway, but his mother had always been disappointed about him getting kicked out. Bucky had always assumed she felt like he was missing out on an essential part of growing up but really Bucky hadn't felt like he missed out by not learning how to set up a tent or cook over a fire. Now that he was leading his niece’s Girl Scout troop he had some regrets. 

When he agreed to lead the troop he had assumed all he had to do was lead some songs and teach a craft every now and again but there was so much more. He had to plan service projects, make sure the girls meet their badge requirements, micromanage parents and a million other things. Dealing with the parents was a nightmare, all they wanted to do was gossip and not actually participate with their girls. Bucky loved the girls though. At first he had been so nervous he was sure the girls could smell the fear on him. He had also been worried that his prosthetic would scare the girls because the sleek metal wasn't something they saw everyday. After the first girl state he was their cyborg leader which made him the best leader he wasn't worried.

The girls had insisted on going on a weekend camping trip which would have been fine if Bucky knew how to do any of the outdoor survival stuff he was supposed it be teaching the girls. The parents he brought along as the additional chaperone was no help either. Who knew putting up a tent could be so hard? By the time one of the girls took pity on him and found the instructions Bucky was about ready to call it quits and find a motel camping badge be damned. Still this was for the girls and they seemed to find endless amusement watching him struggle. 

Once everything was set up Bucky left one of the parents in charge of the campsite and took the girls for a hike. As they walked along the trail Bucky couldn't help but think nature was kind of nice. The air was so much cleaner and the trees looked way less sad in the forest than in landscaping. Having just successfully set up a tent and hiking, Bucky felt like a real outdoorsmen. 

They had been hiking for about an hour and a half when the girls started getting a little restless. Bucky wasn't sure how the girls could get restless while actively exercising but still Bucky did not want to deal with any girl running off because she was bored. His orienteering skills weren't good enough to find his way back to the campsite if he had to run into the woods after a girl. 

A boy came tumbling out of the woods, definitely not on the trail. 

“Tommy! Are you alright?” I told you to watch your step,” a blonde lumberjack looking man said, stepping out of the woods. A string of boys wearing cute little boy scout uniforms filtered out of the trees behind him. 

“We’re going to get eaten by a bear!” A boy yelled sounding way too gleeful about it. 

“I told you there aren't any bears in this forest,” the man said exasperated. 

“Then what about the bear tree we passed? There was a sign and everything,” the boy said like it was checkmate and Bucky had to admit that was a compelling argument. 

“That was a bearing tree, you know what I give up we are going to get eaten by a bear,” the man said. 

“I knew it!” The boy practically cheered. Bucky was a little concerned about the kid. 

“That's not a good Boy Scout attitude,” Bucky teased. The man gave him a withering look. “Well we’re not going to let anyone get eaten by bears today, right girls?” Bucky said to a chorus of ‘that's right.’ “We were about to head back anyway, why don’t you join us?” Bucky offered. Bucky found out that the man, Steve, was the scoutmaster for a boy scout pack. 

The boys filter into his gaggle of girls. While the parent chaperones took up the rear Bucky led the way with Steve. 

“So which one is your’s?” Bucky asked trying to make conversation. As much as he loved the girls he tended to get lost after about ten minutes. He hadn’t realized how out of touch with the youth he was. Plus the lumberjack was hot as fuck. 

“I consider them all my kids, but none of them are mine in the conventional sense,” Steve said “what about you?”

“The bossy one with the pigtails is my niece. My sister has four kids and is a corporate lawyer so she didn't have time to be a leader. She guilted me into but it made me the cool uncle so it all works out. What about you? If none of those munchkins are yours, why are you a leader?” 

“I was too sick as a kid to be a Boy Scout. My local troop lost its scoutmaster and was going to have to disband but my friend who works at the VA center we met at persuaded me into being the scoutmaster,” Steve said. Bucky had to admire that. Not a lot of parents were willing to take the time and energy to run a Scout group, let alone a person with no relation to the kids. 

“So do you have any Girl Scout cookies?” Steve asked in a teasing voice. 

 

Bucky let out an exasperated laugh. “You have no idea how often I get asked that. But yeah I am during cookie season my apartment is always packed with cases of cookies. You should see the cookie warehouse though. Cookies monsters wet dreams are of that place.” Bucky said. Steve laughed. “But my girls are the highest selling troop in Brooklyn. They're saving to take a trip to Europe.” Bucky said proudly. His girls were working hard and if they kepted it up then they would have enough for their trip after next cookie season. 

“That's impressive. My boys sold the most Scout-A-Rama tickets in Brooklyn,” Steve said pride in his voice. 

“So you sold them to their parents? Who even goes to that?” Bucky teased. He had only just met Steve but Bucky could already tell he was the kind of guy Bucky would love to playfully tease. 

“You would be surprised but honestly if I wasn’t required to be there I wouldn't,” Steve admitted with a laugh. 

They chatted the rest of the way down the trail. Bucky was a little surprised that no kids interrupted them, not even to complain which was an amazing feat in itself. When they made it back to the campsite Bucky noticed tents had been put up on the neighboring campsite.

“Looks like we're neighbors, which is a good thing sincere I think the kids have already got attached,” Steve said. Bucky looked back to see the kids chatting and laughing together. He noticed Katie and a little boy giving him and Steve a strange look. Bucky made a funny face in return to which Katie rolled her eyes. She was getting to the age where her weird uncle was no longer cool and just embarrassing. Bucky was going to milk that for everything it was worth. 

“You might as well join us for lunch then,” Bucky said heading toward the picnic tables. Steve didn’t need any convincing and had his boys find seats while he went to fetch their lunches from their campsite. 

They ended up spending the rest of the day together. Bucky had planned on teaching the girls various outdoor survival tips to earn the camping badge, but honestly he was hopeless. The girls would have been better off just googling tips than having him teach them. Luckily Steve seemed to live up to his aesthetic and was a treasure trove of tips. He spent an hour teaching them how to track animals and set up traps. 

When the sun started to set Steve taught the kids how to build a fire. Bucky pulled out the smores supplies to squeals of delight from the kids. He gave the kids a limit of two smores each but he wasn’t really paying attention who he was handing marshmallows to so some kids may have ended up eating four or five. Personally Bucky didn’t understand how kids could get that many, there was so much sugar, but the more sugar they had just meant they would crash even harder after the sugar rush. It was after midnight when he finally managed to persuade the girls to go to bed. 

The parent chaperones facilitated getting ready for bedtime while Bucky and Steve put out the fire. They couldn’t let Smoky down after all. Without the fire Bucky was realizing that he had no where near the right amount of layers. It had been so nice during the day he hadn't really thought about how cold it would get at night. Now though he was ready to snuggle up in his sleeping bag. He made sure all of the girls were getting ready for lights out before heading to his tent to grab an extra sweater.

“Um what happened to my tent!” Bucky asked staring at the spot where his tent had been haphazardly set up. 

“The wind must have got it,” Katie said. Bucky eyed her suspiciously since there had literally been no wind all day, which meant the kids did something to it. The girls liked to play pranks him even sleep often. They thought it was hilarious and allowed them to test boundaries so most of the time Bucky just went along with them. He was too tired to argue about the tent tonight so he just resigned himself to a night of uncomfortably sleeping in his car. 

“My tent is a two person tent you can bunk with me,” Steve offered. 

“I don't want to put you out,” Bucky said.

“I wouldn't have offered if I didn't want to,” Steve assured. It was a better option than his car so Bucky pulled the extra sleeping bag he has brought in case a girl forget her’s and shoved it into Steve’s tent. He was going to have to pester the girls about giving back his tent tomorrow since he didn't really want to lose it to one of their pranks. 

Bucky had already been half convinced Steve had walked out of an REI advertisement but seeing his camping gear clinched it for Bucky. The guy had too of the line everything. Bucky didn't even know what half of the stuff was even used for. Bucky felt ridiculously underprepared as he unrolled his hot pink sleeping bag. It wasn't as nice as the one that had been in his tent but he was ready to pass out. 

Even though the tent was meant for two people it was a tight squeeze. Tents were already a claisphoe’s nightmare but with neither Steve or Bucky being exactly small guys it was almost a hair past cozy. Steve radiated heat though so Bucky couldn't complain. He couldn't help but shuffle a little close to Steve and hope he didn't wake up clinging to the guy. 

“I hope you don't snore like the last dad I brought as chaperone. It was so bad I woke up in the middle of the night thinking an angry bear was attacking camp. I was already halfway out of the tent before I realized it was just the other dad,” Steve whispered. Bucky laughed a little too loudly. 

“I like that your first reaction was to fight the beat,” Bucky teased. He could totally picture Steve in full lumberjack regalia punching a bear in the face to protect his scouts. 

“Well my friend Sam is convinced it is my goal to fight everything and everyone so I guess it just fits my personality,” Steve said with a soft laugh. Bucky snorted. Steve was the kind of guy he wanted to know in real life. They had already exchanged phone numbers so they could keep the troops in contact in case they ever wanted to events together, but Bucky had been secretly hoping Steve might be open to some less than professional texts. 

“Stop flirting! Some of us are trying to sleep!” a yell came make Bucky jump in surprise. 

He was suddenly very aware of how close he was to Steve, who looked like he was suppressing a laugh. It made Bucky start to giggle which lead to Steve starting to giggle. They kept trying to shoosh each other trying to be quite for the kids which only made they louder. They finally settled down and just lay in the tent. Eventually Bucky fell asleep

Bucky woke up with a sore back. The sun was already up and the inside of the tent was starting to get unbearably warm, but that might have been due to that fact he had the human firance that was Steve plaster to his back. Sure, their sleeping bags prevented any skin contact, but that didn’t stop Bucky from blushing. He wiggled out of his sleeping bag and tried to quietly unzip the tent but it felt like the zipper sounded impossibly loud in the silence of the morning. 

Out of the tent Bucky did a quick round of the campsite to make sure everything was alright. It didn’t look like any animal had gotten into their food and the kids’ tents were quiet which hopefully meant they were still asleep and not plotting. 

He was just getting back the campsite bathrooms when he ran into Steve who was emerging from the tent. His face lit up when he saw Bucky, who couldn’t help but think Steve looked like a sleepy puppy with his hair sticking up in all directs and eager look on his face. 

Not wanting to have to deal with hungry, groggy kids, Bucky and Steve started to set up breakfast together working in tandem to start making heaps of pancakes and bacon. The smell of cooking food woke the kids up who slowly started to filter out of the tents. Bucky had a few of the more helpful kids take over cooking and went to go wake up the rest of his girls while Steve went to corral some boys who had started to wonder off. 

Bucky hung back around the tents to make sure everyone was accounted for and nearly jumped out of his skin when huge hands grabbed his waist. 

“What the fuck...I mean frick,” Bucky said catching himself. He tried not to curse around the girls, wanting to set a good example for them, but the fact remained he cursed like the ex-soldier he was so sometimes it just.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you I just was hoping to catch you alone,” Steve said. Before Bucky could ask why, Steve was leaning down pressing his lips to Bucky’s in a chaste kiss. It was just a quick peck on the lips really, barely anything but Bucky was over the moon. 

“I hope I was reading the signs right,” Steve said with a big earnest look on his face. Bucky reassured him with another kiss. This one was more passionate and there were roaming hands. For a moment all Bucky could focus on was the taste of Steve’s mouth and the hand on his ass. 

“You just got parent trapped!” An obnoxious high pitched voice yelled out of nowhere to a peel of children’s laughter. 

“I don't think that really works here since we aren’t your parents,” Steve said sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. Bucky was feeling a little embarrassed himself having been caught making out with a guy a just met by the girls. He should have taken the leader training more seriously when it said ‘a girl is always watching, a girl is always listening.” 

“You're our scout parents which is close enough,” another kid said. Bucky rolled his eyes but kind of agreed with the kid. He was basically a second dad to a lot of his girls, and for some the only father figure in their life. 

“Also what did you guys even do?” Bucky asked. 

“We stole your tent so you would have to sleep with Steve. And made sure to give you plenty of time to flirt. Tommy was the one who spotted us and ‘tripped’ onto our trail” Katie said. Bucky wasn’t sure if it was a bad sign for his love life that his niece felt the need to set him up with strangers in the woods.

“Alright guys, you did good. Now go finish your breakfast so we can go fishing,” Steve said shooing the kids back to the picnic tables. Once all of the kids left and they were alone again, Steve turned to Bucky.  He stepped closer to Bucky and with a moment of hesitation slipped his hand into Bucky’s who squeezed back to let Steve know it was alright. “So I don’t think they are going to let this go if we do end up taking them on joint field trips.”

“Well that’s alright right we are just helping them earn their matchmaking badge,” Bucky said. 

“That’s not a thing.” Steve said with a laugh. 

“Mmm, don’t care,” Bucky said stealing another kiss before letting go of Steve’s hand to walk back to the kids. Maybe camping wasn’t too bad after all. 

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you guys liked it! Let me know if you have any feedback or if you just enjoyed reading it. Again I try to post a fic every week. I alternate between new content and postings new chapters for my ongoing fics.


End file.
